


In Dark Places

by Flyting



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Darkfic, F/M, Gen, Kylo Ren needs Better Friends, Rey is a Skywalker, Violence, backstory fic, creepy knights of ren, deaths of children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5880052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A memory long-buried. Rey, Kylo Ren, and the massacre at the new Jedi Academy.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>They squeeze together into the dark, narrow space beneath the bed. Botha yanks her feet under just as the door to their cabin creaks open. Rain washes inside, staining the sand-colored wood floor, and in a quick flash of lighting, Rey sees it. There’s a dark-hooded figure silhouetted in the doorway. Something thick and red runs down the shaft of a metal pike in its hand.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dark Places

 

Rey had always hated thunderstorms.

Her father had told her that there was nothing to be afraid of. He said that storms were nothing more than atmospheric discharges- the planet’s way of taking care of itself- and that, safe and warm in her bed, they couldn’t possibly hurt her. They were nothing but light and sound and water.

Still, every time the lightning would crack and the night sky would flash brilliant blue-white, she would curl in on herself- a tight ball underneath her blankets- counting the seconds until the thunder came. In the bunk beneath hers, Rey’s friend Botha is sound asleep and making little whuffling sounds. She came from a tropical planet, she’d said. Noisy atmospheres didn’t scare _her._  
  
The lightning flashes again, louder than before, and Rey yanks the blanket over her head.  
  
“ _One, two, three, fou-“_

She whimpers as thunder rolls through the building, making it shiver.

Half-buried in the tail end of the rumble, there is another sound. Rey thinks she only hears it because she has been listening so closely. It’s high and sharp, like a quickly-silenced cry. She frowns in the darkness under her blankets, and reaches out with all her senses for the source of the sound. She knows that she should not, technically, know how to do this yet, and that she will get in trouble if her father finds out. Even the older students struggle to learn how to use the Force this way. But Rey is sharp and Rey is quick, and her cousin has been teaching her the trick to latching onto a particular feeling and following it back to its source.   
  
When she catches hold of it, fleeting _panic pain fear_ taste like copper in her mind. Underneath it, close by, there’s a slick and oily _delight_.

Lightning cracks the sky again, and Rey thinks that she hears a distant cackle of laughter with it.

Rey crawls out of her bunk and into the bed beneath it, shaking Botha by one of her shoulders. Her friend grumbles in her sleep, “Rey, stop it…”  
  
“Shh!” Rey hisses at her, “Botha, I heard a noise. There’s something wrong.”

“What is it?”  
  
In the silence that follows the thunder, they both hear a crash. A splintering of wood.  
  
“Under the bed!” Rey whispers, unable to tell if the _run hide nownownow_ she feels is hers or someone else’s but unwilling to ignore it either way. They squeeze together into the dark, narrow space beneath the bottom bunk. Botha yanks her feet under just as the door to their cabin creaks open. Rain washes inside, staining the sand-colored wood floor, and in a quick flash of lighting, Rey sees it. There’s a dark, hooded figure silhouetted in the doorway. Something thick and red runs down the shaft of a metal pike in its hand.

Botha makes a small, terrified sound and Rey slams her sweaty palm across her friend’s mouth, hoping desperately that the thunder will cover the noise, just as the figure steps into the room.

The tip of the pike scrapes along the floor as the figure approaches the bunks directly across from theirs, where Ma’ki and little Trace are still sleeping quietly. Pinned behind Botha underneath the bed, Rey can only see the figure’s heavy boots as it turns to face the other bunk and raises the pike off the floor.

Another flash of _panicpainfearpainpain_ so strong Rey wants to throw up. Then _pleasure_ and _satisfaction_ roll across her like thunder, prickling her skin. There’s a wet sound, barely audible over the rain, and something dark begins to drip over the side of the bed, puddling next to the figure’s boots. Botha is shaking so hard in Rey’s arms it feels like she’s going to fly apart. The boots shift, and there’s another quickly-ended flare of _painfear_ as the pike is thrust forward again.

The tip of the pike drops to the floor with a heavy metallic thud. In the next flash of lightning, Rey can see that it’s caked in blood and other things she doesn’t want to think about.

The boots turn to face their empty beds and she is suddenly too terrified to breathe.

Unthinking, she reaches out with her mind, brushing tentatively against that slick surface of _dark sucking rage_. She pushes forward the thought, _there’s no one else here_ _they’re all gone_ ; shoves it at the edge of the creature’s consciousness like an offering, and quickly retreats back into her own head.

Nothing moves for what feels like an eternity.

The boots turn and the figure slowly begins to walk towards the open door of the cabin, the tip of the pike dragging a line of blood across the floor behind it. Somewhere in the rain outside, Rey thinks she can hear a hum like a lightsaber and allows herself to believe, for one desperate moment, that _everything was going to be alright someone was there to save them_ -

She’ll never know if she made a sound then, or if it was something else entirely- suddenly, at the threshold of the door, the figure turns, the sodden edge of a cloak whipping around behind it as it strides quickly towards their beds. The pike clatters noisily to the floor as it drops to one knee. When a searching, black-gloved hand closes around her leg, Botha shrieks.  
  


* * *

 

The rain made it easier. 

Between the heavy downpour and the dim, discolored view of the world offered through eyepieces of the mask, it was almost like a training holo. Strike at the closest thing that moves. Search. Strike again, buoyed by rage. Every time the light goes out of their eyes and that sucking emptiness of a life suddenly ended tugs at his own mind like a black hole, a part of him pictures, as he was told to, the faces of the Resistance leaders when they discover his handiwork.  
  
Picture the fear and powerless despair there; let the knowledge of it fuel you.  
  
He imagines his sanctimonious uncle’s face when he finds them. When he realizes who betrayed them. When he sees the telltale mark of a lightsaber on the bodies.

Somewhere to his left, lost in the rain, he can hear the heavy impact of Jando’s rough-hewn wooden paddle as he brings it down again, splitting a struggling boy’s skull open like a cracked egg. Leader Snoke had told them that the Knights of Ren of legend had fought only with whatever weapons they could make with their own two hands. How could the eight of them do otherwise? The result is a motley assortment of blades and bludgeons. Jando’s massive wooden paddle. Lena had a crossbow. Theta, a pike. Barbarian weapons.

His own improvised lightsaber, which spits and crackles in his hand like an angry, living thing, is by-far the most efficient.

It’s messy. Time-consuming. Impractical.  
  
Perhaps that was the point.

They must be nearly done by now. He tries to count the bodies they have dragged out onto the packed-earth sparring ground, but too many of them are in pieces. Ursa’s doing, mostly, but he knows some of the most unrecognizable ones are his own.  
  
He is not looking for a particular figure- for skinny arms and dark hair and round cheeks- he tells himself firmly.  He isn’t. That life was over the moment he drew his lightsaber and cut down that dim little waste of a guard Skywalker- _uncle Luke_ a small corner of his mind supplies treacherously- had left in charge while he was away.  
  
From the other end of the clearing there is a shrill scream. His knights' heads turn to the sound; hunting animals alighting on a scent.

He steps forward, only to find that something is clinging, grabbing desperately at his ankle. He severs the arm neatly with one swipe.

Theta has two of the smaller padawan by the ankles. He drags them, screeching and kicking, to the center of the field. Kylo waits off to the side as the others circle closer like carrion birds. They’re ahead of schedule. May as well let them have their fun.  
  
“A present for you, Ursa,” Theta says, playful even through the voice regulator of his mask.

“Aren’t you sweet,” she purrs, fingering the curved edge of a blade that was nearly as tall as she was.

“She’s had a dozen already. Why not let the rest of us have some fun?” Mallick grouses. The mask he had chosen was older, and it muffled his words.

“My apologies. By all means,” Ursa says, stepping aside with a mockingly gracious wave of her hand. “Do you need us to hold them down for you?”  
  
“Hardly. Not all of us like to play with our food.”

Kylo thinks that probably he should put an end to their bickering. Or have them fight it out and be done with it. Dissent in the ranks was a sign of poor leadership. Snoke had placed him in charge, despite the fact that most of the others were older by at least a handful of years. Only Mallick, at fifteen, was younger.

Through the rain, he realizes that he vaguely recognizes the girl on the left. One of Rey’s little friends. The one with the green skin and large eyes. And the other one was-

Unthinking, he steps forward, driving his lightsaber through Mallick’s chest up to the hilt in one quick motion, just as he was bringing his spiked metal club down on the two padawan

_The other one was Rey._  
  


* * *

 

  
 Rey cowers in the mud, both hands over the back of her head, but the blow never falls.

She doesn’t dare uncover herself, not even when something collapses in a heavy heap just in front of her.

“Well I can’t say I blame you, but didn’t we need him?” the nasty woman’s voice drawls. “Leader Snoke will be displeased.”           
  
Rey chances a peek through her fingers and sees that one of the masked figures, the one with the lightsaber, is standing between her and Botha, and the others. The rain is soaking her through, plastering her hair to her head and washing everything in a grey haze. Dotting the ground surrounding them, she thinks she sees the vague outlines of what might be bodies. She tucks her face back against her knees, dragging in shaking little breaths that sound more like sobs.  
  
“Not this one,” an expressionless voice says.

“Our orders are for one hundred percent fatalities,” another voice argues.

 _“I know our orders.”_         
  
A shrill woman’s voice cackles. “Is the little one having second thoughts? How precious-“

Rey hears rather than sees the red lightsaber swing around.  
  


* * *

 

  
“Enough, Lena,” he says, as coldly as he can manage, holding the lightsaber a measured inch from her throat and struggling for calm and controlled instead of the rising panic he feels welling up inside. Inwardly, he’s reeling. _Stupid, weak, sympathetic idiot- Failed on the first try. Leader Snoke should have known better than to trust you, was wrong to gift you with command._

Theta is edging closer on his right, sensing blood in the water. Behind him, Praetor fingers the edge of his curved blade.

He can take any two of them in combat with ease, perhaps even three, but not all six. Not with Rey at his back to protect.

_See how love weakens you._

“Leader was explicit, Kylo. The Skywalker brat, especially, has to die,” Ursa says, but not unkindly.  
  
His mouth tastes of ashes.

“Then I’ll do it,” he says.  
  


* * *

 

  
Rey yelps when a rough hand fists in the sodden fabric of her tunic, hauling her to her feet.

“What of the other one, _master_?” one of them says.  
  
“Do what you like with her,” the one with the lightsaber replies.

“No!” Rey manages to squeak out, but the sound is lost in the pounding of the rain. She slips in the mud, falling and being yanked to her feet again as she’s dragged forward, unable to keep up with her captor’s long-legged strides. From behind them, Rey hears Botha’s sharp scream. It’s a long time before it stops. A few steps later she trips again, over something soft and fleshy that she can’t bear to look at, and doesn’t stifle a loud sob.  
  
“Quiet,” the man in the mask says, gripping her by the arm and tugging so that she slides across the wet ground. Anger sparks inside of her and she digs her knees into the mud as best she can, tugging back.  
  
“No! Let go! No!” She reaches out with her mind, shoving clumsily against the unmoving wall of his mental defenses- the only attack she knows. She is a Jedi- or would have been one day- and she will not go to her death without a fight.

He stops, turning back to her with a frustrated growl and snatches her up around the middle. He lifts her up roughly and holds her pinned under one arm, immobile, the way her cousin sometimes did when she was being a pest. And just as she does with Ben, Rey kicks her feet and lashes out, striking any part of him she can reach with her small fists.  
  
“Stop it,” he snaps, shaking her hard enough to rattle her teeth.  
  
Rey goes limp and allows herself to be carried like a sack of old clothes. Rainwater runs down the side of her face, blurring her vision and running up her nose until she sputters and coughs. Eventually she realizes that they’ve left the sparring ground and fields behind, passed the circling ring of the padawan's cabins, and are heading into the relative shelter of the forest.

Why is he taking her all the way out here to kill her?

At least the rain wasn't quite so bad here. Not much of it makes it through the trees. But the surrounding air is cold, and Rey shivers everywhere except for where she’s pressed up against the warmth of the man’s side.

He drops her, suddenly, onto a pile of wet leaves. Rey yelps and scampers back, on her hands and her behind, until her back hits a fallen log and there’s nowhere else to retreat to. She pulls her knees up to her chest and waits, curled against herself, for the first blow to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have never actually written Star Wars before and I apologize profusely if I've mangled the canon in some unforgivable way. The idea kinda just attacked me and wouldn't let go.


End file.
